


The Best Man For The Job

by Gigi_Sinclair



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate universe - Somebody Lives/Not Everybody Dies, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:09:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26148457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gigi_Sinclair/pseuds/Gigi_Sinclair
Summary: Based on the @terror_exe tweet: "thomas jopson voice: i am gay and drunk. i commune with the rats. i have a lot of knives. i don't have watercolours yet but i'm working on it"
Relationships: Thomas Jopson/Lt Edward Little
Comments: 8
Kudos: 60
Collections: @terror_exe Flash Fest





	The Best Man For The Job

“Commander Little. I do beg your pardon, sir.” 

The voice at Edward's elbow is insistent, and oh-so-familiar. He turns towards it, a smile already blooming on his face. 

“Lieutenant Jopson! What a pleasure to see you again.” The man looks well. Far better than the last time they were in each other's company, when they carried Jopson off the ship in Portsmouth. Jopson's health has clearly improved in the intervening months. He is so pleased to see it, Edward permits himself to add: “The uniform suits you.” 

A blush of colour comes to Jopson's face. There has been much discussion, Edward knows, about whether Jopson might retain the rank Captain Crozier had, most deservedly in Edward's opinion, bestowed upon him in the Arctic. Captains Crozier and Fitzjames made their case to the Admiralty in favour of it. Edward himself wrote a letter of support, but he doubts that played any role in the eventual decision to allow Jopson to keep his position, provided he sits and passes the lieutenant's exam within a year. An easy task, Edward is certain, for a man as clever as Mr. Jopson.

“Thank you, sir. I am very pleased to see you, as well.” Edward does not have time to bask in that statement. “But I'm afraid I must confess I am rather worried.”

“Worried?” 

Jopson glances about the room. The reception, hosted by their saviour Sir James Clark Ross, is smaller than it might have been, thank God. Still, a few dozen members of Ross' vast social circle are strewn about the expansive ballroom, eager, it seems, for the chance to meet the surviving officers of the infamously failed expedition. 

“Sir,” Jopson murmurs, _sotto voce_ , his expression serious. Before Edward can remind him that honorific is no longer necessary between the two of them, he goes on: “I cannot paint.” 

“Paint?” Edward frowns. He has missed something, clearly, although he cannot think what it may be. 

“Many of the officers seem to engage in gentlemanly pursuits,” Jopson explains. “I decided I must do the same. I thought perhaps to take up watercolours, in honour of Lieutenant Irving.” His expression grows sad at the mention of poor Irving. Edward grimaces in sympathy. “But I have found myself most embarrassingly inept. Truly, sir, it is a disgrace.” 

“Oh.” Edward blinks, unsure how to respond. He has several times indulged in fantasies of meeting Jopson again, and of the various things they might say to one another. This topic of conversation was never broached in his imagination. “Well. Rome wasn't built in a day. I'm certain you will improve with practice.” 

“Do you really believe so?”

“Naturally.” That seems insufficient, so Edward continues: “You have the capacity to succeed at whatever you set your mind to.” Jopson has always been the most competent out of all of them, officers and captain included.

“Oh, thank you!” Jopson's eyes light up, and Edward's stomach gives an unexpected lurch. _Damn oysters_ , he thinks, crossly. “It is good to hear you say it, sir. I was so very worried, you see, that I might bring shame to you and the captains, after all you've done for me. Very worried indeed.” Jopson lifts the glass in his hand to his lips. In doing so, Edward can see that his grasp is a little less than steady, his aim towards his mouth a little less than true. 

“Lieutenant Jopson,” Edward says, surprise and amusement tickling him in equal measures, “are you drunk?” 

After what he suffered through with the captain, Edward would not have thought of Jopson as a man who would be fond of alcohol. He is, however, a man inexperienced in these sorts of soirees. Edward learned the trick of them long ago: one drink taken quickly, to make the evening bearable, then another, carried about and sipped at slowly over the course of hours. If one finishes that second drink too hastily, another will inevitably be pressed into one's hand, then another, then another, and that way lies trouble. No worthy host will allow a guest to remain empty-handed for long. Sir James seems no exception, and Jopson, of course, would be far too polite to refuse him. 

“I am perfectly fine, sir.” Jopson draws himself up. Taking a half-step backwards, he stumbles. Automatically, Edward reaches out to steady him, his hand on Jopson's arm. He is unexpectedly warm; Edward can feel it even through the fabric of his coat. 

Jopson does not shy from Edward's touch. Rather, his eyes come up to meet Edward's. Edward is frozen, unable to look away. Jopson maintains his gaze, his startling blue eyes searching Edward's face. For what, Edward doesn't know, but he feels as if he is pinned in place like a butterfly in a case, trapped by that intoxicating, intoxicated gaze. 

The spell is broken when a woman laughs, high and tinkling, across the room. Jopson flinches, and they both look over to where Lieutenant Le Vesconte stands surrounded by a bevy of fawning ladies. Jopson's face grows redder still. Edward hears himself say, “Shall we go somewhere quieter?” 

Before he can regret making such a startling query, Jopson's gaze returns to him. “Yes, sir,” he says. “Please.” 

The Rosses' library is well-stocked. A single oil lamp burns on a table in the centre of the room, making it too dim to read the titles of the volumes from a distance, but the shelves stretch up and up. On other walls hang paintings of naval scenes, along with a portrait of Sir James, Lady Anne and their children. 

“Sir James strikes a fine figure,” Edward says, when Jopson's eyes land on the portrait. At once, Jopson turns to look at him instead. Edward shifts. “Handsomest man in the Navy, so they say.” He'd certainly seemed such when he appeared at their sorry collection of tents on the shale, his rescue party by his side. Once Edward realized who Ross was, and why he was there, he could have kissed him. Captain Crozier did. 

“Do they say that? Hm.” Again, Jopson holds his eye and again, Edward cannot tear himself away.

Instead, he takes a drink, swallowing hard around the lump that appears to have formed in his throat. Jopson does the same, downing what remains of his in one go and placing the empty glass carefully on a coaster on the table. 

“Your health is better?” Edward asks, as the whisky warms his stomach.

“It is improving.” 

“I am glad to hear it.” Very glad. They lost many good men in the Arctic, but to lose Jopson, the best of them, would be the cruellest blow of all. Not that Edward intends to express this aloud. Instead, he says, “And, despite the watercolours, you are enjoying life as a lieutenant?” 

Jopson's eyes flick across Edward's face, top to bottom and back again. Edward fidgets awkwardly beneath the scrutiny. He is about to take another drink, when there is a rustle from a shadowy corner, just within reach of the lamp's beams. Both men turn in time to see a mouse disappear into a hole in the wainscotting. 

Jopson laughs. It's a lovely sound. Edward hasn't heard it in years. “I used to speak to the rats, you know,” he says, his eyes alight. “In the lower decks aboard _Terror_. I made quite a few friends whilst I was doing the washing down there.” 

Edward laughs in return, although there is a hint of the melancholic about his statement. “I would have been your friend.” Edward is not drunk enough to be making such admissions. But if the barriers between them had not been insurmountable, he would very much have liked to make a friend of Mr. Jopson aboard ship. He tried to be kind to him, and as congenial as he knew how, but the gulf between them, caused by rank and by situation, was simply too wide to breach. 

A gulf which, thanks to Captain Crozier's gift of promotion, no longer exists. 

“I would have liked that,” Jopson replies. His voice is quieter than before, but the smile remains. It even grows a little. 

Emboldened, Edward says, “If I can be of any assistance, with the lieutenant's exam or anything else, you've only to ask. I would be happy to help you, Jopson.”

“Tom. Call me Tom. Please.” His tongue darts out, wetting his lower lip. “As for help, I find myself very intimidated by all the knives,” he continues, his tone confidential. “And forks, and spoons. At table, I mean. I know I spent years laying them, and I do know their functions, but I am plagued by the thought I will make an error and prove to everybody I don't belong. It's just as with the watercolours. I want more than anything to make the captain proud of me. To make you proud of me. And I am certain I will regret telling you that when I'm sober, but it is true.” He finishes, breathless. He glances at his empty glass, as if he wishes it were not so empty. 

Edward's heart, which has been beating apace since Jopson—since _Tom_ —first approached him, melts like an iceberg in the Mediterranean. Years of suppressed emotion, of silenced desires, come tumbling out. “Those things are fripperies, Tom. Unimportant. You have always had the soul of a great officer. The spirit of one. I have never been anything less than impressed by you.” 

If Tom has the excuse of drunkenness for his fervour, Edward can make no such claim. They are florid, over-the-top, entirely uncharacteristic of him, but Edward finds he would not take his words back if he could. 

Suddenly, Tom steps forward, until the two of them are nearly touching. To Edward's continued astonishment, he leans in nearer still, slowly but with purpose, and plants a soft, gentle kiss on the corner of Edward's mouth. 

Edward does not immediately respond. He cannot. His body is flooded by feelings and by thoughts too numerous and intertwined to identify, although one stands out above the rest: it was never, he sees now, Tom's friendship that he wanted.

This realization is less shocking than it ought to be. Instead, it feels entirely natural. So natural, that when Tom pulls back, sheer panic in his beautiful eyes, Edward has no choice but to soothe him with another kiss, longer and deeper than the first. 

Edward cannot say how long they spend like that, wrapped up in one another, only that it is not nearly long enough. It takes every ounce of Edward's fortitude to remind Tom, “You are drunk.” Edward is not quite so badly off, but he is grateful for the drink he's had. It's giving him courage he knows he would not normally possess.

“A good thing, too,” Tom agrees as if he read Edward's mind, his tongue running the length of Edward's upper lip in a way that makes Edward's stomach drop and his prick jerk in his drawers. “I never had the nerve, but I've been wanting to do this since the moment we met.” 

“No!” That's not possible. Edward is not a complete fool. Given the amount of time he spent thinking about Tom, appreciating Tom, wishing he could spend time with Tom, he would have noticed if his feelings were reciprocated.

“An exaggeration, of course," Tom concedes. "We were perhaps as much as two days out of Greenhithe before I knew I was in love with you.” 

_In love_. Edward knows now why Cupid is depicted with a bow. The words shoot an arrow directly into his heart. It takes everything he has to murmur, “You will be missed at the party,” against Tom's lips, even as he draws the man further into his arms. Edward harbours no illusions about his own popularity, but Tom is very well-liked. Crozier or Ross, at least, is certain to remark upon his absence, and may even seek him out if they spend much longer hidden away here. 

“You're right,” Tom says. The words have never brought Edward greater disappointment. Tom extricates himself from his grasp. With a sigh, Edward straightens his deplorably dishevelled uniform, attempting to slow his breathing and quell his excitement. Tom heads for the library door. As Edward is about to reluctantly follow, he hears the _snick_ of a bolt sliding into place, and Tom turns to face him. 

“You have done this before?” He asks, in a tone more provocative than Edward has ever heard from him. 

Edward's breath, which had almost regulated itself, comes in short gasps once more. He cannot, he find, answer with words. Instead, he nods. He doesn't know what "this" is, to Tom, but he knows that the meaningless, emotionless fumblings he's had with other men will not compare in the least to whatever he and Tom do next, even if it is no more than kiss the night away. 

“Then please,” Tom's smile turns sultry, “Commander Little. Teach me everything you know.”


End file.
